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6 unusual facts about Peggy Hopkins Joyce


Peggy Hopkins Joyce

Her first marriage to "Borax King" Everett Archer had been annulled when she was found to be underage.

She owned the Portuguese Diamond, one of the most expensive in the world, that she sold to Harry Winston and which is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

In Cole Porter's "They Couldn't Compare to You" (from Out of This World), the god Mercury sings of his affairs with women real and fictional through history: "... When betwixt Nell Gwyn / And Anne Boleyn / I was forced to make my choice, / I became so confused / I was even amused / And abused by Peggy Joyce..."

Born Marguerite Upton in Berkley, Virginia, she was known as "Peggy", a traditional nickname for Margaret or Marguerite.

Portuguese Diamond

The first documented record of the diamond finds its ownership with the Ziegfeld Follies glamor woman named Peggy Hopkins Joyce who bought the diamond from Black, Starr and Frost in February 1928.

Sherburne Hopkins

Their son, Sherburne Philbrick, later also a lawyer in the family firm, briefly became a social star when he married Margaret Upton, better known as Peggy Hopkins Joyce, a famous stage actress.


Berkley, Virginia

Peggy Hopkins Joyce (May 26, 1893–June 12, 1957), often-married Broadway actress and New York City socialite, was born in Berkley.

Joseph Wright Harriman

Victims of the alleged fraud, including movie stars Constance Talmadge and Peggy Hopkins Joyce, appeared to testify that they had not consented to the withdrawals from their accounts that the defendants arranged.


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